Barbie is right up there, along with McDonald’s and the Marlboro Man, as a capitalist icon that liberals love to hate. Not without reason. Barbie is anatomically inaccurate. She might psych women into body-image anxiety. She could trap girls into limiting self-concepts. And so, for a while, my wife and I very deliberately did not buy our daughters Barbie dolls.
But our daughters were gifted Barbie lookalikes. They did watch Barbie movies at friends' homes. Barbie stuff gradually found its way into our lives. And, having now experienced* quite a few Barbie movies, I am convinced Barbie is Mostly Harmless.
What I like about Barbie is that she is a survivor. She is kind to animals, helps her friends, goes on adventures, solves riddles, sings songs, rides on dragons, defeats the baddies. She generally gets herself a hunky boyfriend. But she is the protagonist. The movie is about her. The boyfriend is an accessory. This is in sharp contrast to the standard template Bollywood script, where the only point of being the heroine is to be the hero’s conquest. This probably does hurt the way many Indian women construct their identities, playing bit roles in their own lives.
Sure, her emotional range is an ideal set up for a Botox-enhanced adulthood. And Barbie is never revolutionary. She does not rage against the machine. She will never be out there on the perimeter, like Janis Joplin, Medha Patkar or Maya Lin. Barbie goes with the flow. When it was cool for women to be Stepford wives, she was a Stepford wife. When it became cool for women to be doctors and pilots, Barbie became Doctor Barbie and Captain Barbie, all splendidly kitted out. Maybe she is more like a Griha Lakshmi than a Bhadra Kali... which, actually, is okay.
The archetypal young woman I find scary is not Barbie, but Ophelia. Barbie survives. Ophelia didn’t. When an envious sliver broke off a slanted willow, Ophelia and her weedy trophies fell in the weeping brook, she chanted snatches of old tunes as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and indued unto that element. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, and therefore I forbid my tears, for Barbie would have swum to shore.
* I don’t think I’ve ever watched a Barbie movie end to end, but I have watched some pivotal scenes multiple times
But our daughters were gifted Barbie lookalikes. They did watch Barbie movies at friends' homes. Barbie stuff gradually found its way into our lives. And, having now experienced* quite a few Barbie movies, I am convinced Barbie is Mostly Harmless.
What I like about Barbie is that she is a survivor. She is kind to animals, helps her friends, goes on adventures, solves riddles, sings songs, rides on dragons, defeats the baddies. She generally gets herself a hunky boyfriend. But she is the protagonist. The movie is about her. The boyfriend is an accessory. This is in sharp contrast to the standard template Bollywood script, where the only point of being the heroine is to be the hero’s conquest. This probably does hurt the way many Indian women construct their identities, playing bit roles in their own lives.
Sure, her emotional range is an ideal set up for a Botox-enhanced adulthood. And Barbie is never revolutionary. She does not rage against the machine. She will never be out there on the perimeter, like Janis Joplin, Medha Patkar or Maya Lin. Barbie goes with the flow. When it was cool for women to be Stepford wives, she was a Stepford wife. When it became cool for women to be doctors and pilots, Barbie became Doctor Barbie and Captain Barbie, all splendidly kitted out. Maybe she is more like a Griha Lakshmi than a Bhadra Kali... which, actually, is okay.
The archetypal young woman I find scary is not Barbie, but Ophelia. Barbie survives. Ophelia didn’t. When an envious sliver broke off a slanted willow, Ophelia and her weedy trophies fell in the weeping brook, she chanted snatches of old tunes as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and indued unto that element. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, and therefore I forbid my tears, for Barbie would have swum to shore.
* I don’t think I’ve ever watched a Barbie movie end to end, but I have watched some pivotal scenes multiple times
7 comments:
I thank my lucky tsars that I didn't know that there even were Barbie movies, never mind pivotal scenes! Mind you we had chatter happy ponies, for which there are absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever, and where the saccharin shock could stop your brain functioning. But, I agree with the sentiments in the post absolutely.
Oops - not quite sure what a lucky 'Tsar' is - maybe one that escapes revolutionaries ;-)
and lest we forget, barbie can also swim with the best of the mermaid bunch... carefully adapting her cachet to every age/phase that our lovely girls tend to pass through... like you, i have come to the conclusion that barbie is Mosty Harmless, in any of her avatars... at a minimum, she is no more a bad influence than multi-hued ponies with a single magnetic foot, who also have adventures, sing songs and ride the occasional scooter (!!)... that said, i am nevertheless relieved that they have finished damaging my visa card...
The joys that us poor sods with two boys miss out on! :)
In the pantheon of influences that our boys have, I'm not even sure where to start with what falls where on the Completely Harmless to Definitely Harmful.
Agree with TS. We rationalise many things our kids watch or do - to convince ourselves that they are not harmless. And maybe they are not. Maybe we should teach them to distinguish rather than shield them.
On another angle - good, bright, cheerful is all very well in a child's world. But in our real worls - madness, despair and anguish is also true, tantalising and in a weird way ... much more interesting. My vote would go for Ophelia...
Krish, a multi-hued pony with a single magnetic foot that rides on scooters...wow! I haven't made acquaintance yet. But god knows what pleasures await :)
Radhi..."But in our real worls - madness, despair and anguish is also true, tantalising and in a weird way...much more interesting". Very true.
The hard part is that interesting and happy are not the same thing. We want art to be interesting, real people to be happy.
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